After discovering what was hidden in Mexico and having to
sneak back across the border Orlando returns to Los Angeles, but is
unable to return to his home.

Instead of hunting Zombies he is now hunted.

Betrayed by those he thought he could trust, Orlando must keep the
truth of what he knows to himself.

That is until dead relatives return with dire warnings.

Hi Everyone! I’m M.M. Shelley and I’d
like to give a BIG thanks to Zombiegirl for having me on her blog today so that
I can share my novella:

The Zombie Story

My story is about Magick and Zombies, a
little different take on the Zombie genre and follows the adventures of Orlando as he arrives in
a new city.

Elodie Juarez is a free spirit, she does what she
wants without worrying about how it might look to others; yet she is all heart.
She is Ruben’s younger sister. Their parents died, leaving them orphans and alone.

Elodie is well aware of the sacrifices
her brother has made in order to keep them together. Although she has made her
own sacrifices; she internalizes everything in order to keep things from her
brother. She is a genius with numbers and knows how to handle herself with a
computer.

She has the habit of following her
brother when she wants to know what he is really up to and it’s how she learns
that Ruben has become involved with underground fighting in order to make
money. She has done her part selling essays online and assisting the occasional
customer in need of her computer expertise for a little extra cash.

She sees Orlando as a kindred spirit and takes it upon
herself to help him with what she can while simultaneously keeping the peace
between Orlando and Ruben who are always challenging each other.

Elodie is considered a misfit at school,
but that doesn’t bother her. She knows that without her help and skills many of
her classmates would meet a tragic death at the hands of those who are using
outcast and lost souls for experiments which in turn are creating zombies and
other creatures of the night.

Thanks
again for hosting this stop on my tour! You can find me over at my blog;
mmshelley.blogspot.com or on twitter @MM_Shelley

The Zombie Story

They rode by Union Station headed
south towards North Broadway. Ruben came to a quick stop without signaling his
intent. He had pulled up to a bakery.

“Why are we stopping here? You
hungry are something?” Orlando
asked as he parked alongside him.

Removing his helmet Ruben
responded, “Or something. This place can get pretty crazy. You’ll see.”

The place was busy, filled with
tourists who made their way up and down the streets of Chinatown.

Ruben and Orlando began to walk away
from their motorcycles, Ruben paused and without looking back, he raised his
right arm and pushed a button on a keychain. The noise of two beeps sounded
securing his ride.

“Seriously?” Orlando asked as they continued forward.

Ruben ignored the question, instead
he pointed out a small shop that sold herbs and teas. “This place is known for
its underground fighting. I think it would be a good place to test you.”

“Underground fighting? In that
place?” He asked uncertain about whether or not Ruben was being straight with
him.

“Yeah, come on I’ll show you,” an
eager smile on his face.

Ruben entered the shop first; the
door bell chimed alerting his presence. Orlando
was hesitant to follow. Through the huge windows Orlando noticed that no one was at the front
counter. Again the door chimed as Orlando strode in, not
quiet sure what was really going on.

Ruben headed into the backroom,
“Looks like they’re all downstairs already.” He came to a stop in a small
hallway, which oddly held no doorways. Kneeling down Ruben removed a piece of
board that was covering a narrow opening. Looking intently at Orlando he asked, “How’s your magick? Are you
a classified novice or mercurial?”

Orlando didn’t know the answer to that, for
he hadn’t been tested yet so he said, “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Fair enough,” Ruben was about to
lead the way down when he was stopped by Orlando’s
question.

“Who am I going to be fighting?”

“Not who, it’s what. People like to
see zombies fight each other and bet on them.”

“Oh,” Orlando thought that was the craziest thing
he had ever heard.

“Yeah, it’s totally awesome.” The
sound of excitement in his voice was clear. “It’s how I met Maxwell; he showed
up one day and asked me if I wanted to hunt these things down. Said I’d be good
at it, because, you know, I kicked their asses in the ring.”

“Wait a minute; you went one on one
with zombies?” That took Orlando
by surprise.

With a grin on his face he said,
“All the time, it was easy money.” Becoming serious he added, “Just don’t
embarrass me man, these guys here, they know me.” With that said he led the way
down the stairs and into a tunnel.

They could hear the noise from the
fighting at the end of the tunnel. The sounds of bone hitting bone, the
grunting and the shouts of the gamers placing bets on the fights, greeted them
as they made the way down the tunnel.

“Yo!” Ruben shouted. “How’s it
going?” He asked the man at the entrance
to a cavern. It looked like a basement. There were crates stacked up along one
side of the wall. Several tunnels had been cut into the basement leading who
knew where. There was no traditional looking ring in the basement. Just an area
that was empty and it looked like there was dried blood on the ground.

“For real?” the man asked
uncertain. He looked Orlando
over, not sure there was a fighter in him.

“Dude, you’re asking me? You do
remember all the wins I have under my belt?” He took a few steps forward to
assert his statement.

The man began to laugh
uncomfortably, “Let’s put him in.”

Ruben turned back to Orlando a huge grin on
his face as he asked, “You didn’t eat this morning did you?”

Dead
Relatives

Michael
stepped out of a car that he had ‘borrowed’ and waved Orlando down. Michael had to raise his voice
in order to be heard over the engine. “What happened to Ruben?” he asked.

Orlando turned the engine
off and gave a quick answer, “He was hurt.” He then went on to change the
subject back to the reason he had driven so far. “What info do you have about
the fifth?

They
had decided to number the six men that they were looking for. They felt it was
easier to keep track of them that way. Jeffries had been number six and he was
safely tucked away at the camp.

The
camp was compiled of hunters and others who had no place else to go. Orlando had only been
calling it home for about a week. He’d been gone from home for a week and he
hadn’t even contacted his family, he knew that they wouldn’t be safe if he did.
He had heard that someone had placed a bounty on his head. That someone had
been asking questions about him and had even shown up at his high school and had
come by the camp.

Michael
walked over to a garage and pulling the lever he opened it, inside was dark. Orlando rolled his
motorcycle inside and Michael released the lever allowing it to close them
inside.

A
light turned on, Orlando
could see that it was a work space, tables had been set up and computer equipment
was actively running some sort of data. The windows to the garage had been
blacked out.

“I’ve
been monitoring them for a few days.” Michael said as he waved Orlando over to a computer screen. “Every two
hours a code name pops up. Lexicon.”

“Lexicon?
Is that the name of the fifth?”

“I
couldn’t say for sure. It could be the name of a project or something else.”

“What
else does it say?”

“They
are preparing for some kind of delivery. I don’t know much more then that.”

“Let’s
go.” Orlando
said. “Let’s get it done.”

“You
don’t want to wait for Ruben?” Michael asked as he seemed unsure about
proceeding without him.

Orlando took a step
toward him. “Ruben is not an unclassified Wizard. He’s not even a Mercurial.”

“Yeah,
but your magick hasn’t been the most reliable.”

Orlando didn’t like
hearing that. “This coming from a novice?”

Michael
backed down at his words. “I was just saying.”

The
classification of magick was simple; there were three levels of magick: Wizard,
Mercurial and Novice. A Wizard was someone who’s magick was most strong and
constant. It was rare to be a classified Wizard and many doubted the existence
of them.

A
Mercurial had magick, yet the magick was never reliable, it was never steady
and it could be destructive. The steady use of magick over time could make the
person go mad from the effects.

A
person with the least possible amount of magick was called a Novice. Novices had
no control over magick when it was used. Most Novices went years without being
able to use magick or sometimes they never used it at all.

The
effects of Magick had been widely studied with tests and experiments to somehow
control how a person used magick, to make magick more effective for a Novice
and to control the desire for more magick in a Mercurial. None of these
experiments had been effective and had ended in disaster.

The
classification of magick was put into effect to control and curb one’s use of
it. Everyone would begin the process of classification, which took years, at
the age of thirteen or fourteen. They would be subjected to an endurance test
and an I.Q. test to determine their classification. The classification, once
given, would determine the course of one’s future. With the economy in a
recession and well on its way into a depression, the classification process was
more important than ever.

Orlando was an
unclassified Wizard; his parents had taken great pains to avoid the
classification process for him. Orlando’s
mother was a pharmaceutical technician and had knowledge of the research that
was done on anyone who was classified as a Wizard.

Orlando
and Michael agreed to a plan and decided that they would arrive separately. As Orlando turned his cell
phone to silent he noted that Elodie had called him and that she had left a
message. He would call her later when he had good news.

About
the Author:

M.M. Shelley is a
storyteller, word smith and dreamer. She has traveled the world extensively in
search of the magic which is often overlooked in every day life. M.M. Shelley
is a native of southern California, and a student of mythology from which she
gets much inspiration. Visit M.M. Shelley: www.mmshelley.com

She has never
feared the walking dead. It’s the power required to reanimate the dead that
startles her, seduces her. The power that dwells inside her…and is growing.

For Professor Ruby
Montagne, being a necromancer has brought her nothing but heartache, and she
walked away from that part of her life long ago. However, her quiet existence
in San Francisco is shattered when she stumbles upon the body of a slain witch,
and the supernatural community insists she transform him into a revenant to
track the killer. But his murder was just the beginning, and Ruby soon realizes
that the stakes are higher than anyone can imagine—and that revenants have
nasty minds of their own.

Now demonic
creatures have escaped into the human world, and zombies once again walk the
streets. For humanity’s sake, Ruby forms an unlikely alliance with a
witch, a zombie, and Ewan March, a demon warrior who sets her senses on fire.

She’s always
distrusted demons and Ewan is no exception, but circumstances push them closer
together, and Ruby not only finds it harder to resist him, she isn’t sure she
even wants to. But she suspects his job of patrolling the portal separating
humans and demons conceals a dark and deadly past that may consume them both.

With events
spiraling out of control, Ruby unravels a plot that not only threatens the
human and demon realms, but puts Ruby’s very soul in jeopardy. Because when the
dead walk, no one is safe. Especially Ruby.

Ewan
waved me over to an empty expanse of the porch circled with candles of various
shapes and colors, casting an ominous glow that barely chased off the shadows
skulking around the room. I walked over, steering clear of the screen.

“Will
this do?” he asked.

I
nodded. “Where’s Adam’s body?”

“In
the basement. Do you want it brought up now?”

“No.”
Achieve inner calm while peeking at the dead body, worried it’ll pop up and
jump on me? Not likely.

“All
right then, I’ll leave you alone.” He didn’t move. The lines around his mouth
softened. “I want to apologize for last night. I wasn’t acting very
gentlemanly.”

“Gentlemanly?”
I smiled. The tension eased from my shoulders. “I’d never use gentleman in the
same breath as demon.”

He’d
somehow moved closer during our exchange and grazed my cheek with his finger.
“White horse,” he whispered close to my ear, “boring.”

He
lowered his lips to mine but stopped short of touching them, tracing my back
with his hand, gliding it up my neck to wrap his fingers in my hair. Our bodies
were close but not touching; only our breaths met in a hot exchange. He gazed
at my lips before possessing them with his own.

I
swayed and caught his shoulders to steady myself. I moaned at the electric
shock searing a path from my lips to my core. Feeling, tasting him was better
than I ever allowed myself to imagine.

Ewan
consumed me.

I
wasn’t ready to be consumed.

Ummmm. This one is going on my TBR list for sure! Delicious!!!

About the Author:

Noemi Ghirghi
writes as Mimi Sebastian and raised herself on books and the strange and
unusual with an unhealthy dose of comics and Scooby Doo. Loving angst-filled
romance thrown in the mix, she decided to blend all those elements in a steamy
mix in her first Urban Fantasy series, the Necromancer Books. The first book,
The Necromancer’s Seduction, debuts July 15, 2013, with ImaJinn Books.

Noemi spent two
years in the Ivory Coast with the Peace Corps and loves to introduce tid-bits
from her experiences in her writing. She’s a member of Romance Writers of
America and the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA. A transplant
from the beaches of Florida, Noemi now wanders the desert in Phoenix, AZ, and
attempts to balance writing with a day career, fantastic family, and household
diva: her Amazon parrot.

About Me

Dana Wright has always had a fascination with things that go bump in the night. She is often found playing at local bookstores, trying not to maim herself with crochet hooks or knitting needles, watching monster movies with her husband and furry kids or blogging about books. More commonly, she is chained to her computers, writing like a woman possessed. She is currently working on several children's stories, young adult fiction, short stories and is trying her hand at poetry. She is a contributing author to Ghost Sniffer’s CYOA, Siren’s Call E-zine in their “Women in Horror” issue in February 2013 and "Revenge" in October 2013, a contributing author to Potatoes! (upcoming), Fossil Lake, Undead in Pictures, Potnia, a funny ghost story anthology by Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly Press, Dark Harvest,Wonderstruck, Shifters: A Charity Anthology, Holiday Horrors and the Roms, Bombs and Zoms Anthology from Evil Girlfriend Media. Dana has also reviewed music for Muzikreviews.com specializing in New Age and alternative music and has been a contributing writer to Eternal Haunted Summer, Nightmare Illustrated, Massacre Magazine, Pagan Living Magazine, The Were Traveler October 2013 edition: The Little Magazine of Magnificent Monsters, the December 2013 issue The Day the Zombies Ruled the Earth. She currently reviews music at New Age Music Reviews and Write a Music Review.